SAP R3up Upgrade Alert Monitoring for everybody for free - and this even without using UA!

SAP provides an Upgrade Alert Monitoring for the Upgrade Assistent. This is an Exit for a Trigger Program, that will be called in case of an Alert (i.e. the R3UP or PREPARE needs some User Input).
This functionality is based on checking for the following file in the filesystem on the server where R3UP or the PREPARE is running:
/usr/sap/put/tmp/upalert.log

As this file is provided by R3UP and PREPARE and not from the Upgrade Asssistent itself, it is always created when the upgrade has some Alerts and needs User Input.

The following solution works for everybody, that just owns a modem and a cell phone as it checks for this special Alert File with s simple Visual Basic Script Program.

• SAP Standard Upgrade Alert Monitoring
• You have to use the Upgrade Assistent - it is not supported without this tool and running R3UP individually
• You need a pager or cell-phone gateway in your SAP network in order to be able to receive the Alert
• You need the special Trigger Program with the special Protocol in order to "connect" the Upgrade Assistent to your Gateway
• All of this is mostly not that cheap and especially not really useful to implement when only needed for an SAP Upgrade which happens quite rarely
• Special cheap & easy Upgrade Alert Monitoring with this R3up-Cellphone-Alarm Tool
• You can choose if you prefer the SAP Upgrade Assistent or still want to use the R3UP and PREPARE programs manually
• You do not need to buy special specific hardware.
  You ONLY need the following stuff:
• PC running Windows NT, 2000, XP or 2003
• Modem attached to the PC and a phone line
• Cell-Phone (or any other phone of your choice where you want to receive the Alarm)
• WSH 5.6 or higher (Windows Skripting Host) (Download)
• VB-Script Program R3upCellphoneAlarm.vbs from below
• Network Connection from that PC to the Server where R3UP is running on (for sure, it can run on the smae server as well as it needs more or less no ressources at all if you are using Windows anyway)
  When using iSeries (AS/400) you can create the necessary share as follows with QSECOFR:
  

  CALL PGM(QZLSADFS) PARM('ROOTBIN' '/' X'00000001' X'00000000'
       'Root-Share, binary                                 '
       X'00000002' X'FFFFFFFF' X'00000000')    
  

  This will create a share to the root of your AS/400 that is called ROOTBIN. You can map this share to your PC with the name \\iSeries-Name\ROOTBIN .
• Setup the R3up-Cellphone-Alarm tool:
• Ensure, that WSH is at least installed in the version 5.6 (e.g. properties of WSCRIPT.EXE (mostly in c:\WinNT) and then "version")
• Setup a Network-Share to the Server, that is running R3UP, so that you have access to the put-direcory
• Cut&Paste the Source of the VBS-Program R3upCellphoneAlarm.vbs and create with e.g. Notepad this file on your computer
• Setup the new DialUp-Connection to the Cellphone:
• You setup a new Dial-Up Connection of your choice with the phone number of your cellphone
• Go to the properties of this new connection and select the tab-strip "Options". There you deselect "Prompt for name and password, ..." and "Prompt for phone number".
  (If you should not find it there (e.g. because you are using Win NT4), you should dial the connection and enter a user and password of your choice with marking the "save password" (e.g. user: user; password: xxx) The real values are not of any interest here, because there will be never a useful connection between your PC and your cellphone. We just use this as Alarm for you!)
• Now, you open a DOS box and issue the following command:
  rasphone -d your_new_connection
  ("your_new_connection" needs to be replaced by the real name of your connection)
  This should result in creating a call to your cellphone without any user interaction. If you are asked for a user e.g. you should enter this and save it as you need this without any user interaction the next time. So, retry this that often as it initiates a call without any interaction.
  Then you receive a call at your cellphone automatically. Hopefully you are able to see the number of the caller, because most likely you will not hear anything when you accept the call, because the PC waits until you create the "typical modem noise" - which will not happen. You should be called up to 3 times with a delay of 1 minute.
• Adjust the R3upCellphoneAlarm.vbs program to your needs via Notepad:
• In the top area, you will find the variable "CheckFile", that needs to be filled with the value of your environment. You need a driveletter to the put directory of the upgrade. If this e.g. is S: a possible value could be:
  s:\usr\sap\put\tmp\upalert.log
  or if you should have a share directly to the put-directory:
  s:\tmp\upalert.log
• Directly below you find the variable "PhoneBookEntry". This one needs to be filled with the name of your new created phonebook entry.
• That are all changes already!
• Run the R3up-Cellphone-Alarm Tool:
• Just doubleclick on the file "R3upCellphoneAlarm.vbs"
• You will receive a message box, that tells you to test this tool before assuming, that it will work ...
• This tool checks all 10 seconds for the SAP Upgrade Alert File (upalert.log).
  (So, it consumes more or less no ressources and on the other hand calls you immediately.)
• As soon as the tool does detect the file, it will give you a call. In order to test this, you should use the tool right from the beginning of the upgrade. As you are asked there several time, this Alert File is available very often (i.e. at every user input!).
• If the tool is tested successful, it just work fine for you.
• If you want to stop the tool, you should start the task manager (taskmgr.exe) and go to the tab-strip "Processes" and kill the process "wscript.exe".
• Some enhancement ideas ? Give Feedback
  
  
• Source code of the VB-Script R3upCellphoneAlarm.vbs:

' ++++ Start of VB-Script R3upCellphoneAlarm.vbs for "Cut&Paste"
' R3upCellphoneAlarm.vbs written by Volker Gueldenpfennig
' Further questions: http://www.easymarketplace.de/Feedback.php
' WSH 5.6 may be necessary for this program ...

' ++++ Here you have to adjust to your landscape - Start ++++
' syntax: "d:\usr\sap\put\tmp\upalert.log" - Complete path with file "upalert.log"
CheckFile = "d:\usr\sap\put\tmp\upalert.log"
' Here you have to enter the correct phone book entry where you have entered
' the user and password already ...
' syntax: "your_phone_book_entry"
PhoneBookEntry = "your_phone_book_entry"
' ++++ Here you have to adjust to your landscape - End   ++++


Set oShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
Set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
crlf = vbCRLF
R3upText = "R3UP is stuck !!!" + crlf
R3upText = R3upText + "File: " + CheckFile + " does exist!" + crlf

' info, that program was started ...
R3upInfo = "R3up Cellphone Alarm is started now - but not activatted yet !" + crlf
R3upInfo = R3upInfo + "We check for file '" + CheckFile + "'." + crlf
R3upInfo = R3upInfo + "As soon as we find this file we will calll the phonebook "
R3upInfo = R3upInfo + "entry '" + PhoneBookEntry + "'." + crlf + crlf
R3upInfo = R3upInfo + "!!! Please check this tool at the beginning during the "
R3upInfo = R3upInfo + "first user actions, so that you can be sure, "
R3upInfo = R3upInfo + "that it works fine later on !!!" + crlf + crlf
R3upInfo = R3upInfo + "!!! Now, click on the OK button in order to really "
R3upInfo = R3upInfo + "activate this tool - otherwise it won't work !!!" + crlf
CellDial = "rasphone -d " + PhoneBookEntry

WScript.Echo(R3upInfo)


' Loop until this process gets killed ...

do

  ' Does the Checkfile exists now or is still everything running fine ?
  If oFSO.FileExists(CheckFile) Then

    ' We found the file, that tells us that the R3UP is
    ' waiting for user-input. So we call the Cell-Phone as Alarm now ...
    oShell.Run CellDial

    ' Stay here and write the warning
    WScript.Echo(R3upText)

  Else
    ' Everything is OK, do nothing ...
  End If

  ' Sleep 10 s as this value is in milli-seconds - can be adjusted
  wsh.sleep 10000

loop
' ++++ End of VB-Script R3upCellphoneAlarm.vbs for "Cut&Paste"